Transcript Child Care and Welfare Reform: Child Care Subsidy Utilization and Effects on Employment Anne Shlay, Visiting Professor, Department of Geography and School of Public.

Child Care and Welfare Reform:
Child Care Subsidy Utilization and
Effects on Employment
Anne Shlay, Visiting Professor, Department of
Geography and School of Public Policy,
Hebrew University
Professor of Sociology, Temple University
http://astro.temple.edu/~ashlay
Outline
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The new welfare reform and implications for
child care
The quality issue
Design and data collection
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The Subsidy Utilization Study
The Employment Outcomes Study
The Factorial Survey Study
Welfare, child care and employment in Israel:
discussion
Welfare Reform in the U.S.
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1996 Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)
“Change welfare as we know it.”
Previous welfare benefits : Aid to Families
with Dependent Children (AFDC)
New welfare benefits: Temporary Aid to Need
Families (TANF)
Employment and Welfare
Reform
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Ended welfare as an entitlement
program
Work requirement after two years of
receiving cash assistance
Five year total life time limit for
receiving cash assistance.
Key element: Work requirement after
two years of receiving cash assistance
Supporting work: the
transition off of welfare
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PRWORA: accompanied by large federal
appropriations to support transition from
welfare to work
Overall appropriations: $30 billion
Support for states to operate own programs
Range of services include education and job
training, transportation and child care
Child care and welfare reform
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Most AFDC/TANF recipients: single mothers
with very young children
To attend education/employment programs
and to work, requires child care to free up
mothers’ time
Child care subsidies: critical component of
welfare reform
Government pays for child care while low
income women prepare for and enter the
labor market
Federal support for child care
subsidies
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Billions of dollars for child care subsidies
Mostly federal but some state dollars
Debate over whether support adequate
to meet need
As policy issue: welfare reform given
child care issue more support, public
visibility and political leverage than ever
before.
Child care subsidies and
welfare reform: two goals
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Support child care while families (mothers) in
training, education or work programs to assist
transition off of welfare while receiving TANF
Support child care for families (mothers)
immediately after they stop receiving TANF to
support employment and impede return to
welfare
Key element: Child care subsidies intended to
support welfare recipients make permanent
transition into labor market
Important caveat: germane to
U.S.: Child care politics
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Mothers being told that they should stay
home with children.
Guilt syndrome associated with legitimate
concerns over quality of care
Major divisions by race and class
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Middle class married women may have choices: to
stay home or stay in the labor market. Can also
afford better quality care
Low income women: told not to stay home. Must
enter the labor market. Must use child care
system, regardless of quality.
The quality issue: major issue
in U.S.
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Child care market does not deliver
quality care
Studies of quality (direct observation of
care and proxies for quality) show most
care low to mediocre quality
Why low quality?
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Poor remuneration: poverty wages
High turnover (33% annually)
Low education levels
Poor training
Informal market
Minimum regulations
Absence of regulation enforcement
Feminization of care work: concentration of women
Cost of care tied to women’s wage (lower than
men’s)
Patriarchy/sexism
Two tiered market
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Formal market: regulated market
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Informal market: unregulated market
Formal market: regulated
market
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State regulations: regulate minimum class
size, child/staff ratios, educational credentials,
and minimum standards for safety and
sanitation
Regulations do not mandate quality. Provide
floor for quality
Includes child care centers (>12 kids), family
day care homes (3-5, 6-12 kids), legally
unregulated care (1-3 kids)
Informal market
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Unregulated family day care homes
Neighbor care
Relative care
Kith and kin care
Quality and the market
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Quality known about formal market
Informal market: underground
Approximately 50% of child care
informal
Question: is quality lower in informal
market?
Importance of quality
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Early years important years for child
development
Debate about brain development (first three
years)
NICHD Study of Early Child Care
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Quality affects development outcomes and school
readiness (over and above family characteristics)
Impact of quality higher for lower income children
than higher income children
Quality child care (perhaps) more important for
lower income kids than higher income kids
Child care as low income
family intervention
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Child care: potentially mechanism for
improving developmental outcomes for young
children
May support school readiness and later
learning ability
Could be mechanism for improving life
chances of low income children/families
Reduce socio-economic difference by race,
ethnicity and class
Welfare leavers study
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Designed to look at child care subsidy
utilization, employment outcomes and
child care preferences of welfare leavers
Funded by two major foundations
Policy partners
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Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare:
welfare and child care agency
Advisory board of major child care actors
including practitioners and advocacy (NGO)
organizations
Goal: do research and make into policy
quickly.
Therefore: government and advocate
partners
Initiated three empirical
studies
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Subsidy utilization study
Employment outcomes study
Child care preferences factorial survey
study
Subsidy utilization Study.
Telephone survey (time 1)
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Welfare leaver utilization of child care
subsidies when leaving welfare system
Transition process from one subsidy
system to another
Barriers to subsidies
Factors that influence the acquisiton
and utilization of subsidies
Employment outcomes study:
telephone survey (time 2)
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Interviewed welfare leavers 6-8 months
later
Examine acquisition and maintenance of
employment
Impact of child care subsidies on
welfare leavers’ ability to sustain
employment
Factorial survey study: in
person interviews (time 3)
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Examine child care preferences
Look at whether child care subsidies
permit child care use congruent with
preferences
Race and ethnicity
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Compared differences by race and ethnicity
Specifically looked at differences among
White, Hispanic and African American welfare
leavers
Race and ethnicity: structural factors in U.S.
society
Distributes rewards, outcomes and
opportunities
Dimensions of inequality both within and
between classes
Race and ethnicity as cultural
factors
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Believed to be related to child care use
and subsidy use
Related to attitudes, preferences and
behaviors vis a vis child care and child
care subsidies
Look at differences among race and
ethnicity
Overall study design
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Comparative and longitudinal
Sample of White, African American and
Hispanic welfare leavers
Sampled from lists of welfare leavers
provided by Department of Public Welfare
Stratified random sample: random sample
from three strata defined by race and
ethnicity
Final sample
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658 welfare recipients
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African Americans: 228
White: 215
Hispanic: 215
Time 1: Overall response rate: 66%
(similar across all groups)
Time 2: 36% of study respondents from
time 1.
Subsidy utilization study: Preliminary
findings on subsidy and child care
use
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Less than one third used a child care subsidy
after leaving welfare
Large number (30%) used unsubsidized care
Largest group (40%) used no form of regular
child care
African Americans used child care subsidies at
twice the rate of White or Hispanic welfare
leavers
Employment outcomes study:
preliminary findings
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Continuity in use of subsidized care over
time (61% received subsidies at time 1
and time 2)
Continuity in employment (94%
employed at time one were employed
at time 2)
Having child care subsidies increased
probably of employment by 139%
Factorial survey: Design
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Method to examine preferences for complex,
multidimensional phenomenon
Factor out different components of
multidimensional phenomenon
Goal: look at the impact of different
components on overall preferences for multidimensional phenomena
Examples: housing and neighborhood
preferences, household prestige, crime
seriousness, sexual harassment, racial
prejudice.
Random assignment to short
stories: vignettes
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Determine discrete items that make up
multidimensional phenomena: dimensions (type of
variable)
Determine levels within dimensions (values of
variables)
Have computer randomly assign levels to short
stories (vignettes)
Ask overall rating question: desirability
Use multivariate technique to assess independent
contribution of each level on net changes in
desirability.
Examples of dimensions and
levels
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Type of care
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a. center care
b. family day care
c. relative cared. neighbor
care
Location of care
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a. in your home
b. not in your home
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a. care by a relative
b. care by a neighbor
c. care by a friend
d. care by a professional
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a. someone you have
known for a long time
b. someone you have not
known for a long time
License
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Relationship to care provider
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Familiarity with care provider
a. is licensed
b. is unlicensed
c. [blank]
Group size
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a. provides care for children
in smaller groups
b. provides care for children
in larger groups
Sample Child Care Vignette
This is a relative care arrangement in the relative's home that is a 15-minute commute from home to child care and
30-minute commute from child care to work. The arrangement is accredited. It accepts subsidized children and
offers care during the evenings and weekends.
The care provider has some training in child care. The care provider does not have any experience taking care of
children in a child care setting.
The care provider is not warm but strict. The children receive a lot of individual attention.
The program has planned activities for learning and playing.
The care provider always makes sure that everything appears to be clean and safe for the children. The children cared
for are racially mixed and are mostly children from high income families. Most of the children are receiving a
subsidy to help pay for the cost of care.
______________________________________________________________________
Please circle the number that best corresponds with your answer.
1. How much would you like this child care for you and your family?
Not at all
Very much
1------------2-----------3-----------4-----------5-----------6-----------7-----------8-----------9
2. In your view, what would be a fair weekly price for this child care? Please disregard whether or not you could
afford the fair price.
$0
<$20
$21-$40 $41-$60 $61-$80 $81-$100 $101-$120
$121-$140
$141-$160 $161-$180 >$181
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3. How much would you be willing to pay per week for this child care?
$0
<$20
$21-$40 $41-$60 $61-$80 $81-$100 $101-$120
$121-$140
$141-$160 $161-$180 >$181
1---------2------------3------------4------------5------------6---------------7----------------8----------------9--------------10-------11
Factorial Survey Analysis
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Assess contribution of impact of having
a license not have a license, center
care versus family care.
Also assesses overall contribution of
dimensions, e.g. effect of regulations,
child care provider interactions
Applications to multiple set of issues
Child care and welfare reform
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The Israeli context??